Jazz legends, young lions, and the rich traditions of Latin jazz come together in the 2008 Caramoor International Jazz Festival.
With a career reaching back over five decades, the legendary jazz pianist, Ahmad Jamal opens the 2008 International Jazz Festival. The innovative and delightfully surprising improvisations heard this evening in the intimate Spanish Courtyard will show why Ahmad Jamal is one of our greatest living jazz pianists.
Arguably the most prominent figure in jazz today, trumpeter, composer, and bandleader, Wynton Marsalis and his Quintet headline this year's Festival and make Saturday night swing. Elio Villafranca and Chuchito Valdes - two of today's most eminent Cuban pianists - begin the day by squaring off in a Cuban musical summit. Wingspan brings together a powerful line up of some of today's most exciting players and serves as a perfect vehicle for pianist and leader Mulgrew Miller's ever-evolving and highly personal style. The afternoon concludes with the foremost Brazilian duo - guitarist Ricardo Peixoto and vocalist Claudia Villela - in an exploration of 50 years of Bossa Nova.
On Sunday, the weekend concludes with the piano pyrotechnics of Dominican pianist and Westchester resident Michel Camilo. 81-year-old saxophonist, composer, band leader, and jazz legend, Jimmy Heath and his Big Band turn up the heat(h)! To start the afternoon, pianist Aaron Diehl, unleashing his brilliant technique and sensitive touch, shows why he is a new force on the jazz scene.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Ricardo Peixoto, guitar ~ Ricardo Peixoto's fluid melodic sense and original harmonic approach place him at the forefront of Brazilian guitar in the U.S. today. An inspired improviser with a keen compositional sense, Ricardo's unique and eloquent style evokes images far beyond his Brazilian territory. Born in Rio de Janeiro, guitarist, composer and arranger Ricardo Peixoto came to the U.S. by way of a scholarship to Boston’s Berklee College of Music, and later settled in the San Francisco Bay Area. Though grounded both in the jazz and Brazilian music traditions, Ricardo has ventured well beyond their borders. Working as a solo artist, or in collaboration with others, he draws on a huge stylistic palette. Whether playing classical or electric guitars, Ricardo's music combines rich melodies, unusual harmonies, and the unmistakable rhythms of Brazil.
Peixoto’s long-standing partnership with vocalist/composer Claudia Villela has produced the acclaimed CD ‘Inverse Universe’. Their performances explore their country’s rich and diverse traditions, both in their original work and in their arrangements of brazilian classics, while also allowing for spontaneous interaction with each other and the music in the moment. In addition to his ongoing collaboration with Villela, Peixoto has recorded and performed with, among others, Flora Purim and Airto, saxophonist Bud Shank, percussionist Dom Um Romão, Toots Thielemans, Dori Caymmi, Guinga, Harvey Wainapel, and Marcos Silva. He has performed throughout the US, Europe, Canada, Japan and Brazil.
Aside from his work as a performer and composer, Peixoto is also well respected as a teacher and lecturer on Brazilian music.
Jesus "Chuchito" Valdés, piano ~ Jesus "Chuchito" Valdés following in the footsteps of his famed father Chucho Valdés and grandfather Bebo Valdés, continues the legacy of great piano players from Cuba. His influences of Afro Cuban rhythms and jazz creates an exciting and energetic blend of spicy music that drives audiences wild.
Chuchito has led "Irakere" for 2 years and has also performed at festivals, clubs and concerts throughout the world: from Cuba, the Caribbean to North America, South America, and Europe.
Chuchito is recognized as a master at Cuban music including Son, Danzon, Cuban Timba and Guaguanco. He has also extensively studied classical music including harmony and composition. His original compositions and arrangements draw on classical harmonic and structural techniques.
In his performances, Chuchito’s music draws on many styles including Afro-Cuban Latin Jazz, Bebop, Danzon, Cha-Cha-Cha, Son Montuno and much more. Chuchito Valdés currently resides in Cancun, Mexico and is a frequent performer in the United State and Canada.
Elio Villafranco, piano ~ Pianist and composer Elio Villafranca’s musical excellence was first widely recognized in 2003 by Jazz Times Magazine who selected his debut album Incantations/ Encantaciones (Universal/Pimienta) as one of the top 50 best jazz albums of the year. More recently, Wynton Marsalis featured Mr. Villafranca, in a performance at the Allen Room, Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City.
The Elio Villafranca Quartet has featured an array of accomplished musicians including Pat Martino, Jane Bunnett, Terell Stafford, Eric Alexander, Casey Benjamin, and John Santos among others. The Elio Villafranca Quartet has toured nationally and internationally, performing at Jazz a Beaune Festival in France and the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York City. Villafranca has also gained the recognition of Latin and jazz music elite as a sideman: He has collaborated with Jon Faddis, Sonny Fortune, Dave Valentin, Lenny White, Horacio "El Negro" Hernández, Ralph Peterson, Giovanni Hidalgo, Eddie Henderson, Miguel Zenon, Candido Camero, and Johnny Pacheco among others.
Mr. Villafranca has also toured Europe with Grammy Nominated Blue Note recording artists Jane Bunnett as part of The Spirit of Havana, and also as part of Pat Martino’s Quintet, with whom he performed at various world-renowned venues including the Blue Note Jazz Festival in Ghent, Belgium, the Blue Note Jazz Club in Milan, Italy, the Umbria Jazz Festival in Perugia, Italy, and the North Sea Jazz Festival at The Hague, Holland. Elio Villafranca was born in the Pinar del Rio province of Western Cuba and classically trained in percussion and composition at the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana, Cuba.
Since his arrival in the U.S., Villafranca has been involved in East and West coast jazz and Latin jazz scenes. His music, inspired by jazz and Afro Cuban music, creates a unique cultural and musical fusion, with spirited, groundbreaking innovations. Mr. Villafranca has composed and arranged original music soundtracks for PBS documentaries and a variety of independent films, and is resident professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Villafranca currently resides in New York City and is represented by Gail Boyd Artist Management.
Claudia Villela, voice ~ Claudia Villela’s voice gets all the attention, and it’s easy to understand why. Her glorious five-octave instrument is one of the wonders of jazz, lithe and startlingly beautiful in every register. Born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, she is a true artist, pouring natural magic in every sound she makes. A supremely inventive improvising singer, she is like an aural avatar who can conjure the hot thumps of primitive drums, the cool language of Miles Davis, the ethereal yearn of a bamboo flute, or the distortion-laden guitar of Jimi Hendrix.
But it’s a serious mistake to let her gorgeous voice overshadow her other musical talents. Based in Northern California since the mid-1980s, Villela has evolved into a ingenious composer and lyricist , as well as a poignant interpreter of the Brazilian songbook.
Whether writing at the piano or percussion or generating spontaneous tunes in the studio- as on her lavishly praised 2004 duo session with piano legend Kenny Werner, DreamTales (Adventure Music)- Villela possesses a rare gift for melodic invention, coupled with a rhythmic sensibility steeped in Brazil’s vast treasury of syncopation. “It’s really stream of consciousness music,” says Werner about DreamTales, an album that inspired banjo great Bela Fleck to declare that Villela “is pure music.”
While once described as the best-kept Brazilian secret in North America, Villela finally attained widespread recognition with the 2003 release of her masterpiece “InverseUniverse” (Adventure Music), a program of dazzling original pieces created with her longtime collaborator, Rio-born guitarist Ricardo Peixoto, with guest star Toots Thielemans on harmonica.
In recent years, Villela’s international reputation as a performer and composer has continued to grow through appearances at the world’s most prestigious jazz festivals and clubs,. In the fall of 2008, she received a high profile commission from New York University commissioned to set poems by several Latin American poets to music. Her performance with acclaimed Brazilian singer and composer Dori Caymmi was broadcast nationally as part of National Public Radio’s “JazzSet.”
Besides her soaring voice, what sets Villela apart from other Brazilian jazz singers is her expansive musical conception. Her musical palette extends far beyond samba, bossa nova and bebop to encompass the universe's teaming natural and supernatural realms. From Amazonian rainy ceremonial rituals to tropical bird calls and sensuous ocean rhythms, Villela taps into Brazil’s protean landscape, evoking the bone-deep sense of yearning for home, love and nature that suffuses her Brazilian soul. Her eclectic taste and inspiration ranges from Bach to Gismonti, though she is also finds herself a fan of Led Zeppelin and lesser known Brazilian folkloric rhythms.
